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International News Title: Illusion Of Economic Recovery – Feelings & Facts There is no means of avoiding a final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as the final and total catastrophe of the currency involved. - Ludwig von Mises The last week has offered an amusing display of the difference between the cheerleading corporate mainstream media, lying Wall Street shills and the critical thinking analysts like Zero Hedge, Mike Shedlock, Jesse, and John Hussman. What passes for journalism at CNBC and the rest of the mainstream print and TV media is beyond laughable. Their America is all about feelings. Are we confident? Are we bullish? Are we optimistic about the future? America has turned into a giant confidence game. The governing elite spend their time spinning stories about recovery and manipulating public opinion so people will feel good and spend money. Facts are inconvenient to their storyline. The truth is for suckers. They know what is best for us and will tell us what to do and when to do it. The false storyline last week was the dramatic surge in new jobs. This fantastic news was utilized by the six banks that account for 80% of the stock market trading to propel the NASDAQ to an eleven year high and the Dow Jones to a four year high. The compliant corporate press did their part with blaring headlines of good cheer. The entire sham was designed to make Joe the Plumber pull out one of his 15 credit cards and buy a new 72 inch 3D HDTV for this weekend's Super Bowl. When you watch a CNBC talking head interviewing a Wall Street shyster realize you have the 1% interviewing the .01% about how great things are. What you most certainly did not hear from the MSM is that the NASDAQ is still down 42% from its 2000 high of 5,048. None of the brain dead twits on CNBC pointed out the S&P 500 is trading at the exact same level it reached on April 8, 1999. Twelve or thirteen years of zero or negative returns are meaningless when a story needs to be sold. On Friday the hyperbole utilized by the media mouthpieces was off the charts, leading to an all-out brawl between the critical thinking blogosphere and the non-thinking professionals spouting the government sanctioned propaganda. Accusations flew back and forth about who was misinterpreting the data. I found it hysterical that anyone would debate the accuracy of BLS (Bureau of Lies & Swindles) data. The drones at this government propaganda agency relentlessly massage the data until they achieve a happy ending. They use a birth/death model to create jobs out of thin air, later adjusting those phantom jobs away in a press release on a Friday night. They create new categories of Americans to pretend they aren't really unemployed. They use more models to make adjustments for seasonality. Then they make massive one-time adjustments for the Census. Essentially, you can conclude that anything the BLS reports on a monthly basis is a wild ass guess, massaged to present the most optimistic view of the world. The government preferred unemployment rate of 8.3% is a terrible joke and the MSM dutifully spouts this drivel to a zombie-like public. If the governing elite were to report the truth, the public would realize we are in the midst of a 2nd Great Depression. The unemployment rate during the Great Depression reached 25%. Without the BLS adjustments the real unemployment rate in this country is 23%. Cheerleading and packaging the data in a way to mislead the public does not change the facts: Until Debt Do Us Part Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results. - Albert Einstein The recovery storyline being touted by the oligarchy of politicians, bankers and media is designed to make consumers feel better. This is a key part of their master plan. Any honest assessment of the financial disaster that struck in 2008 would conclude it was caused by too much debt peddled to too many people incapable of paying it back, too few banks having too much power, the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates too low for too long, and that same Federal Reserve doing too little regulating of the Too Big To Fail Wall Street mega-banks. I wonder what Albert Einstein would think about the solutions rolled out to fix our debt problem. Would he find it insane that total credit market debt has actually risen to an all-time high of $53.8 trillion, up $533 billion from the previous 2008 peak? Our leaders have added $6.1 trillion to our National Debt in the last four years, a mere 66% increase. This unprecedented level of borrowing certainly did not benefit the American people, as real GDP has risen by $96 billion, or 0.7%, over the last four years. Would Einstein find it insane that the governing elite would encourage the 4 biggest banks, that were the main culprits in creating a worldwide financial collapse, to actually get bigger. The largest banks in the U.S. now control 72% of all the deposits in the country versus 68.5% in 2008. The Too Big To Fail are now Too Bigger To Fail. Rather than liquidating the bad debts, breaking up the insolvent banks, selling off the good assets to well-run banks, firing the executives, and wiping out the shareholders & bondholders foolish enough to invest in these badly run casinos, the powers that be chose to protect their fellow .01% brethren and throw the 99% under the bus. Ben Bernanke, in conjunction with Tim Geithner and his masters on Wall Street, implemented a zero interest rate policy designed to enrich the Wall Street banks, force investors into the stock market, and encourage Americans to borrow and spend like it was 2005 again. Rather than accepting that our economy has been warped for decades, with over-consumption utilizing debt as the driving force, and allowing a reset, the Federal Reserve insanely encouraging banks and consumers to do the same thing again. We do know Bernanke has stolen $450 billion of interest income going to savers and senior citizens and handed it to Jamie Dimon, Vikrim Pandit, Lloyd Blankfein and the rest of the Wall Street cabal. The austerity is bad storyline is pounded home on a daily basis by the politicians, corporate chieftains, Wall Street billionaires, and MSM pundits. The definition of austere is practicing great self-denial. Did you see the mob scenes on Black Friday? Americans are incapable of any self-denial, let alone great self-denial, and the masters of our country will not allow it to happen. One look at our GDP figures confirms the non-austerity occurring in this country. In 2007, prior to the collapse, consumer spending accounted for 69.7% of GDP. Today, consumer spending accounts for 71% of GDP, with investment accounting for 12.7% of GDP. In the good old days of 1979 prior to the epic debt bubble, when the financial industry do not run this country, consumer spending accounted for 62% of GDP and investment accounted for 19% of GDP. What an insane concept. You spend less than you make and save the difference. You then invest that money where you can get a reasonable return (.15% in a money market account is not exactly reasonable). As Ludwig von Mises pointed out, a false boom created by credit expansion will ultimately collapse. We had the chance in 2008 - 2009 to voluntarily abandon the Wall Street induced credit expansion and allow our country to reset. The pain and misery would have been great, especially for the 1% who own most of the stocks, bonds and peddle the debt to the ignorant masses. As you can see in the chart below, the powers that be need debt per employed American to grow at an ever increasing rate to maintain their power and wealth. The miniscule reduction in debt from 2009 to 2011 was unacceptable. The governing powers will not be satisfied until von Mises' final currency catastrophe is achieved. Bernanke and his Wall Street puppet masters' plan is actually quite simple. It's essentially a confidence game. A confidence game (also known as a con, flim-flam, gaffle, grift, hustle, scam, scheme, or swindle) is an attempt to defraud a group by gaining their confidence. The people who commit such tricks are often known as con men, con artists, or grifters. The con man often works with one or more accomplices called shills, who help manipulate the mark into accepting the con man's plan. In a traditional confidence game, the mark is led to believe that he will be able to win money or some other prize by doing some task. The accomplices may pretend to be random strangers who have benefited from successfully performing the task. Bernanke and the 1% are the con men. They are attempting to defraud the 99% by convincing them their solutions will benefit them. The shills acting as accomplices are Wall Street bankers, bought off economists, politicians, journalists, and mainstream media pundits. You are the mark. The game has multiple facets but is based on more freely flowing low interest easy debt. The con man has reduced interest rates to zero at the behest of his puppet masters. The Wall Street accomplices offer enticing financing to the marks for big ticket items like automobiles, furniture and electronics. As the marks go further into debt, the Wall Street shills report record earnings ($26 billion from loan loss reserve accounting entries), consumer spending rises and GDP goes higher. The mainstream media accomplices dutifully report an improving economy. The government accomplices massage the employment and inflation data and declare a jobs recovery with no inflation. The marks are supposed to feel better about the future and spend even more borrowed money. This is what is considered a self-sustaining recovery by the psychopaths running this country. All you have to do is open your daily paper to see the confidence game in full display. Last week the MSM reported another surge in automobile sales. Our beloved American automobile manufacturers are back baby!!! Automobile sales are now pacing above 14 million on an annual basis. This is up from the depths of the recession in 2009 when the annual rate was below 10 million. We've breached the Cash For Clunkers level and there is nowhere to go but up. The storyline is that Obama was right to save GM and Chrysler with your tax dollars. They are now making splendid vehicles (except for the exploding Chevy Volts) and employing millions of Americans. This is a true American comeback success story. Clint Eastwood should do a commercial about it. There is one little problem with this storyline. It's bullshit. Remember GMAC? You bailed them out when all their subprime auto and mortgage loans went bad in 2009. They have a brand new business plan. Change your name to Ally Bank and start making as many subprime auto loans as possible. You will be happy to know that according to Experian, 45% of all auto loans being made today are to subprime borrowers. What could possibly go wrong? In addition, the average loan term has grown to almost 6 years. Executives at Ally Financial said that subprime car lending had become very attractive because profit margins on the loans more than cover the cost of expected losses from borrowers who fail to repay what they owe. I'm sure they have everything completely under control. Gina Proia, a company spokeswoman, said the company places greater emphasis on the higher end of the nonprime spectrum and only lends to people who show they can pay. I can't believe they are restricting their loans to only people who they think can pay. I'm surprised Obama isn't condemning them for such restrictive loan terms. If you open your paper to the auto section you will see financing offers of $0 down-payment, and 0% interest for 7 years across the board on most models. But why buy, when you can lease a luxury automobile for $300 per month? It is simply amazing how many vehicles you can sell when credit challenged Americans can rent them for seven years. I wonder if this explains why I see dozens of $40,000 luxury autos parked in front of $25,000 dilapidated hovels during my daily commute through West Philadelphia. It also seems the Big Three are selling a few extra vehicles to their dealers in January as pointed out by Zero Hedge. No need to let a few facts get in the way of a feel good story. The McKinsey Group put out a report a couple weeks ago analyzing the amount of American household debt and optimistically concluding that it could be back on a sustainable path by 2013. Mike Shedlock pointed out that sustainable is in the eye of the beholder. It seems the bright fellows at McKinsey haven't grasped the concept of regression to the mean. First of all their analysis is flawed because real disposable personal income is actually declining and Ben Bernanke's master scam is working and Americans are now adding to their household debt. The little blue line has turned upwards since they gathered their data. Secondly, as Mish so accurately points out, the sustainable level of household debt is really at the levels prior to the debt bubble that began in the early 1980s. That is a debt level of approximately 70% of disposable personal income, as opposed to the current level of 110%. The implications of household debt levels regressing to their long-term mean would be catastrophic to the 1%. Their kingdom of debt would come crashing down. Their power and wealth would be swept away. This is why it is so vital for them to create the illusion of recovery. Their confidence game is built upon an ever increasing flow of credit expansion. It will not work. There is no avoiding the final collapse of a boom created solely by credit expansion. Those in power will never voluntarily relinquish their grand game of pillaging the wealth of the nation, so economic collapse will be the ultimate result. They will continue to use propaganda, printing presses, and half-truths to further their agenda. But those who examine the facts will come to a logical conclusion that we are being sold a great lie. Half the truth is often a great lie. - Benjamin Franklin
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#1. To: Capitalist Eric (#0)
Good, you're getting there. And the above WILL/IS happening... Like the Mish quotes near the end....8D LMFAO "Secondly, as Mish so accurately points out, the sustainable level of household debt is really at the levels prior to the debt bubble that began in the early 1980s. That is a debt level of approximately 70% of disposable personal income, as opposed to the current level of 110%." And the Credit 'expansion' is merely 49 year olds getting $12 000 student loans to re tool....big mistake. You tell these people that massive drone attacks, &/or attacking Iran will make their lives better, they're ALL on board. But this works for the state only until it doesn't. The Fifth Fleet lies at the bottom of the Persian Gulf, Ras Tanura's in flames, Dimona's doin' a Fukushima, the pipeline across the Arabian Peninsula's destroyed, no oil moving past Hormuz....Non Linear meets Dragon King. :roll:
mish: There are currently 132,409,000 nonfarm employees. In December of 2000 there were 132,481,000 employees. How's that for job growth? Retraining Scam Job retraining is scam perpetrated by for-profit universities, fueled by statements from Obama regarding re-training people for new jobs.
PEr yesterday's Weekly Petroleum Usage Report Total fuel demand fell 0.5 percent to 17.6 million barrels a day, the lowest level since 1999. YEAH!!! We're becoming Energy Independent!!! 8D
And you'll hear the above from USSAtv right before this: "The Sunburn is perhaps the most lethal anti-ship missile in the world, designed to fly as low as 9 feet above ground/water at more than 1,500 miles per hour (mach 2+). The missile uses a violent pop-up maneuver for its terminal approach to throw off Phalanx and other U.S. anti-missile defense systems. Given their low cost, theyre perfectly suited for close quarter naval conflict in the bathtub-like Persian Gulf. O, and has a throw weight of a VW Beetle...the shock wave alone will destroy a carrier.
I'll have to research this one a bit.
I'll have to research this one a bit. I had a really bad sunburn which prevented me from going to the Boyscout Jamboree in Valley Forge the year so many attending scouts contracted Polio. Some sunburns are anti-lethal. www.raytheon.com/capabili...groups/public/documents/c ontent/cms01_055726.pdf
Some sunburns are anti-lethal. 8D
take a look at Raytheon's SeaRam (above)
The massive Moskit/SS-N-22 Sunburn is available in ship, sub and air launch versions, the latter compatible with the Su-30 and Su-32FN/34 Flanker variants. This Mach 2 ASCM is carried by the PLA-N's four Sovremennyy class DDGs, each of which is armed with 8 rounds (Rosvooruzheniye). The Raduga 3M-80, 3M-82 and Kh-41 Moskit The Raduga 3M-80, 3M-82 and Kh-41 Moskit (SS-N-22 Sunburn) are all variants of the same 4.5 tonne supersonic rocket-ramjet missile. This weapon is the primary armament of the 956E Sovremennyy class destroyer used by China and is credited with a range between 50 and 120 nautical miles. Unlike subsonic Western anti-ship missiles such as the Harpoon and Exocet, the Moskit is a supersonic sea-skimmer. It can be programmed to fly a high altitude trajectory at Mach 3, or a sea-skimming trajectory at Mach 2.2. If the sea skimming mode is chosen, the missile will be first detected by a warship under attack when it emerges over the horizon at a distance of about 15 to 25 nautical miles. This provides the defences on the ship with about 25-60 seconds of warning time before impact. Moreover the speed of the Moskit makes it a challenging target for many shipboard defences.
Thanks I read a bit about it. The old cliche seems to apply - game changer wrt to the Sunburn and Iran.
We should just tie our carriers up now. And the Russians have a torpedo that produces a 'bubble' in front of it, so that it can travel at supersonic speed underwater. The more advanced 3M-54E combines the subsonic cruise airframe of the 3M-54E1/3M-14E with a Mach 2.9 rocket propelled guided payload. Like its subsonic sibling, it approaches from under the horizon using the same radar seeker to detect its target. Once locked on, it discards the cruise airframe, fires its rocket motor, and accelerates to Mach 2.9 at a sea skimming altitude of 15 feet. Novator claim the missile follows a zig-zag flightpath to defeat defences. Both the 3M-54E1 and 3M-54E are small weapons which are difficult to detect on radar, especially should even basic radar signature reduction techniques be applied to them. The use of a bandpass radome and minimal absorbent coatings could push the weapon's head on radar cross section down to that of a large grapefruit (Refer Knott, Schaeffer & Tuley, Radar Cross Section, Ch.14).
The Russians are way ahead on maneuvering sea skimming missiles. And it doesn't matter now, even as the USSA is frantic to catch up. ALL of our Navy is now engaged in the ability to control ALL airspace within 300 Klicks of the shoreline. The Moskvit/Yakhont negates ALL of the Navy. Any ship can and will be destroyed hours into the conflict. Carriers might as well tie up at their port of choice.
On January 23rd, the Obama administration charged former CIA officer John Kiriakou under the Espionage Act for disclosing classified information to journalists about the waterboarding of al-Qaeda suspects. His is just the latest prosecution in an unprecedented assault on government whistleblowers and leakers of every sort. Kiriakous plight will clearly be but one more battle in a broader war to ensure that government actions and sunshine policies dont go together. By now, there can be little doubt that government retaliation against whistleblowers is not an isolated event, nor even an agency-by-agency practice. The number of cases in play suggests an organized strategy to deprive Americans of knowledge of the more disreputable things that their government does.
Aweful quiet here this AM. Everyone must be getting ready for the Arctic freeze or just enjoying the remarkable recovery of the USSA. It's afternoon in Amerika! Nap time!!!! ;}
Ain't that the truth.
Carriers might as well tie up at their port of choice. From Salamis to Trafalgar to Midway surprise and stealth have both bedeviled and enhanced the eventual outcome of naval warfare. While I agree that carriers are obsolete one has to hope that countermeasures are available that are not in the public view. What is USSA?
Yes it is. I'm going shopping soon.
Really...? (((shaking head in disgust))) You clearly don't know diddley shit about naval tactics. Ever heard of 688 boats? You know, the submarines that can launch Tomahawk missiles? Ring any bells, genius...? You're an idiot.
To: mcToejam, rat-boy, drippy, Alzheimer Fred, whitesands, t-bird, loonymom/ming, e-type jackoff, goober56, wreck, cal-CON, rabid dog, dummy DwarF, biff, harrowup the communist, and meguro. You're on the "a waste of human flesh" list. Piss off.
Hey Super Duper Military tactician! LMFAO Hope your Commanding Masters have more brains than you, but, sadly, I think not. The PROBLEM is not that we can win the battle. The PROBLEM is that WE have the EMPIRE. WE have to make sure 25% of the World's OIL passes thru Hormuz. That Ras Tanura, the World's Largest Refinery is not in flames. That the Afghans aren't instantly cut off. That our Carriers aren't 50 Klicks from 100's of Sea skimming cruise missiles, an y ONE of which gets thru will completely disable and/or sink said carrier. And that's just the start. Dimona/Bushehr get hit and the Region's Oil Fields will be Fukushima'd...;} You stupid F uck...;}
Trying to divert away from the fact that you just made an ass out of yourself? Pssssst. It didn't work.
To: mcToejam, rat-boy, drippy, Alzheimer Fred, whitesands, t-bird, loonymom/ming, e-type jackoff, goober56, wreck, cal-CON, rabid dog, dummy DwarF, biff, harrowup the communist, and meguro. You're on the "a waste of human flesh" list. Piss off.
On how you can tell NORAD/SS/cheney-both hubby &wife/mossad did 9/11. Everything made a cause of revenge abject failure....;} Capitalist Eric(#19) Hey Super Duper Military tactician! LMFAO Hope your Commanding Masters have more brains than you, but, sadly, I think not. The PROBLEM is not that we can win the battle. The PROBLEM is that WE have the EMPIRE. WE have to make sure 25% of the World's OIL passes thru Hormuz. That Ras Tanura, the World's Largest Refinery is not in flames. That the Afghans aren't instantly cut off. That our Carriers aren't 50 Klicks from 100's of Sea skimming cruise missiles, an y ONE of which gets thru will completely disable and/or sink said carrier. And that's just the start. Dimona/Bushehr get hit and the Region's Oil Fields will be Fukushima'd...;}
Davis last month submitted the unclassified report titled Dereliction of Duty II: Senior Military Leaders Loss of Integrity Wounds Afghan War Effort for an internal Army review. Such a report could then be released to the public. However, according to U.S. military officials familiar with the situation, the Pentagon is refusing to do so. Rolling Stone has now obtained a full copy of the 84-page unclassified version, which has been making the rounds within the U.S. government, including the White House. Weve decided to publish it in full; its well worth reading for yourself. It is, in my estimation, one of the most significant documents published by an active-duty officer in the past ten years.
Abd just WTF are we doing fighting on the SAME SIDE as Al Qaida? LMFAO Must be confusing for IsraeliFirsters.
Oh boy, this will get interesting although an 84 page report might cause headaches at home;^) After ten years...someone tries to get the truth out.
Someone, high enough in the military, who couldn't be labeled psycho, or Enemy of the State....big difference, cause us Dirty Fuckin Hippies have said we're going to lose the afghans, since we were also saying that 9/11 was Made in America....;} Get your cheap heroin now, cause those record crops are about to be in the past....8D
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